


Be Your Teenage Dream Tonight

by Pollydoodles



Series: 50 Ways to Meet Your Lover [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 08:56:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12128976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pollydoodles/pseuds/Pollydoodles
Summary: Bucky's quite happy lurking at the back of yet another Stark party, but a certain brunette has other ideas.Or - 50 ways to meet your lover; when they won't leave you & your grumpy self alone in peace.





	Be Your Teenage Dream Tonight

“Feels like being a teenager again, right?”

Bucky rolled his eyes across the bar to where a girl, dark-haired and short, was grinning at him. She was poured into a dress the likes of which he’d never seen a girl in when he was a teenager, made of a fabric he thought probably didn’t even exist back in the 30s, though her lips were painted a deep red which felt somewhat familiar. She nodded up at the paper streamers and balloons that Stark had decorated the room with. 

“I guess,” he said with a non-committal shrug, fingers pulling absentmindedly at the damp label on his beer bottle, quietly shredding it to pieces. Stark’s perpetual need to party rankled at him, the forced need to socialise because they’d defeated the villain of the week, or because it was a holiday, or just because it was a Tuesday. He tended to lurk by the bar, if he went at all. 

“Sure it is,” she replied, scooting her way down the bar until she was directly opposite him. Bucky refocused his eyeline on the condensation that decorated the neck of the beer bottle he was gripping perhaps a little too tightly, and away from the neckline in front of him that would likely have had his mother tutting under her breath had she seen it. 

“You know what it’s like at high school dances,” the girl said conversationally, and Bucky raised an eyebrow. “You got the popular kids-” the little brunette turned her head and gestured toward the dancefloor where Steve was - well, it would be a kindness to call it dancing, he thought to himself with a snort - with a laughing Pepper, who was clearly working along the same lines as Bucky. 

“- science nerds - “

The girl’s sweeping hand crossed the dancefloor to a quiet corner where Jane and Banner were locked in deep conversation. Jane seemed to be disagreeing with whatever it was that the other doctor was saying to her, gesturing quickly as she demonstrated her point to him in return. Bruce was responding in kind, losing half his whiskey to counteract whatever it was Foster was so committed to. 

“- jocks -”

Rhodes appeared to be mediating between Wilson - brandishing a pool cue - and Barton, holding darts in one hand, the other pool cue in his other hand and wearing a look of total (and, Bucky was certain, entirely false) innocence. Barton’s dog wagged his tail lazily from side to side as he snagged forgotten pizza from a nearby coffee table. 

“ - the weird foreign exchange student - “

Thor waved enthusiastically from the other side of the room as he clocked the girl looking his way, slopping what was probably beer out of an elaborately carved pewter stein that Bucky was fairly sure didn’t come from Stark’s fancy glass cabinets. The little brunette waved back, her shoulders shaking with barely suppressed laughter as she did so. 

“See?” She said, turning back to him with a grin on her face. “All present and correct.”

“That so,” he replied, draining the last of the beer with one long slow slug that had him tipping his head back so that his dark hair fell back from his face. “Where do I fit in, then?”

“You’re the troublemaker,” she answered, decidedly and he looked at her then, properly, pausing in the motion of finding an unopened beer bottle. 

“Brave,” Bucky murmured, mostly to himself, thinking that this was the longest - or possibly only - conversation he’d had for a damn long time, and also that he wasn’t entirely certain of her name, even. And yet here she was, some pint-sized kid in heels, telling him - the Winter Soldier, no less - that he was a troublemaker. 

“You’re totally the troublemaker,” the girl said, nodding as she reached across the bar and grabbed a beer for herself. “You’ve got the leather, the hair, the look on your face that says you’re way too cool to be hanging out with the likes of us mere mortals. Dude, you’re Danny Zuko. You’re Ren McCormack. You’re John freaking Bender.”

She snagged a chip from the lone bowl sat between them in the middle of the counter, and winked as she crunched down on it. 

“And these are… People I’m supposed to know?” Bucky hazarded a guess, popping the cap from a new bottle with one metallic thumb. The cap skittered across the countertop and the girl put a hand down over it to stop it dancing over the edge. She offered her bottle across to him wordlessly and, after a pause, eyes flickering across her, he popped the cap on that too. 

“If you’ve ever wanted to fit into the 21st Century, then I’d say yeah,” she said after taking a long slug of beer. Head tilting to one side, dark curls falling against one bare shoulder, she fixed him with what was almost a calculating look. “But I guess that’s not really your thing, is it.”

It could have been a question. From anyone else, it probably would have been - had they had the inclination, or more likely the balls to say it - but on this kid it was a statement. Bucky felt somewhat blindsided by the conversation. It had been a long time since anyone had really spoken to him, save Steve. The others, well, they did it when they had to. Or when Steve nudged them into it, which was essentially the same thing. 

He couldn’t really say he was bothered by it. He’d spent decades without talking to anyone else and he didn’t find he had an awful lot to add to a conversation, unless it was about battle tactics and weaponry. The one time he’d made an effort - another pointed nudge from Steve - it seemed Stark’s receptionist wasn’t all that keen on knowing the quickest way to strip and rebuild an AK-47 in the field. 

Although, as he said to Steve afterwards, it had resulted in a short trip to HR and then to Pepper’s office, so that was two more conversations he’d participated in and surely that was what Steve had wanted?

“What’re you, then,” Bucky said instead of answering the non-question, another drag on his beer which had him sucking at bubbles and he vaguely wondered when it was he’d managed to drink most of what was in it. He could feel a slight tingle in his shoulders, the telltale sign that he was starting to catch a buzz from it. 

At times like this, pushed into parties he had no interest in, Bucky found himself thankful that he’d gotten the bastardised version of Steve’s super soldier serum. He couldn’t imagine the depths of hell this sort of thing would be without alcohol running through his system. 

“Me?” Her cherry red lips, a flash of bright colour against her pale face, popped together briefly into a thoughtful ‘o’ before she carried on. “I’m the girl who has to take her glasses off before anyone notices her properly.”

“Like Clark Kent.”

“Oh, so you know who Superman is,” she laughed, snagging another beer and pushing it across to him with an expectant look. Bucky obliged, popping the cap easily, but as she reached across the counter for the bottle, he brought it to his own lips and tipped his head back, sucking down a good mouthful before handing it over. 

“Superman’s older’n you think, kid,” he said, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth and not entirely dropping his eyes from where she’d put the rim of the bottle to her lips. “And maybe I’m not as old as you think.”

“I know how old you are,” the girl said, and he was certain he didn’t miss the way her eyes dragged from his waist over the shirt Steve had insisted he borrow - the one that was a little too tight on Steve and even tighter on Bucky, once you factored in the metal arm - to rest on his face. He didn’t know quite what to say to that, so opted to root around for something a little stronger than beer, dropping to his knees behind the bar counter. 

“He keeps the good stuff at the back,” came a voice from above him, and Bucky glanced up from where he was hunkered down, one knee on the smooth hardwood floor. The girl, stretched over the counter, peered down at him, all big blue eyes and a mess of dark hair framing her face. 

He nodded, partly toward her but mostly to himself, and knocked a few bottles aside before he found a 12 year old single malt that had to be decent, covered in dust as it was. Bucky checked the next shelf up for a tumbler and, pausing briefly, his hand hovered over the array of glasses on offer. He moved to take just one, hesitated and, sucking in a sharp breath, he stuck his fingers in two glasses to snag them. 

Rising to his feet, finding the girl now perched on the edge of the counter, legs crossed at the knee, Bucky held out the bottle for inspection, dropping the tumblers onto the counter as he did so. She leaned forward from where she was sat, eyes glancing across the yellowing label, before nodding her approval. 

“Good eye,” she commented, sitting back. 

“It’s been said,” Bucky answered with eyes that dropped to the counter once more, rubbing a thumb over the label, feeling the little bumps and bubbles under it where it had started to unglue from the glass bottle it was wrapped around. “I’m guessing if he hides the good shit at the back of the shelves, it’s best not to drink it in the open.”

He quirked an eyebrow at the brunette, and she didn’t answer but wiggled her way off the counter. Bucky allowed himself a moment to be impressed that she could land on heels that high with any sort of balance, but then he had a small hand in his and that knocked all other thought clean from his head. He stared down at his own hand dumbly - except, of course, it wasn’t his own hand, hadn’t been his own hand since 1944. 

Hers looked impossibly small laid in his large metal one, and he swallowed hard. 

“You coming?” 

She was gazing up at him, the fairy lights strung across the ceiling reflected in her eyes - giving them an otherworldly sparkle and making Bucky feel uncomfortably as though the little brunette could see right into his soul. The uncomfortable part being that - apart from this being the longest anyone had looked into his eyes for the best part of a century - he’d long since assumed they’d stolen that away along with his left arm. 

The girl jerked her head to the side, and tugged on his hand, not waiting for him to answer before she started walking. 

Five minutes later found him following her up a small staircase that wound up and up in what felt like ever-decreasing circles, and finally through a closed door onto what turned out to be the roof. 

“Jane spends her time up here, star-gazing,” the girl explained without being asked, or looking back at him. Bending at the waist, she slipped off first one shoe and then the other, losing about 5 inches in height as she did so, letting out a happy sigh. Bucky kicked the door shut behind them and dropped the tumblers onto the wide ledge that circled the rooftop. 

The brunette hopped up onto the ledge in front of him, seemingly careless about the drop on the other side of it. She hooked one foot around the opposite ankle and leaned back on her palms, watching as Bucky unscrewed the bottle cap and poured out a decent measure in first one, then the other glass. 

She picked up the one nearest her, and clinked it cheerfully against his when he did the same, before knocking it back in one. Bucky snorted, then followed suit, letting his head fall back on his shoulders and feeling the liquid burn its way down his throat as he did so. 

“Huh,” she said, wrinkling her nose and leaning back further, head almost hanging clear over the edge of the building as she stretched. “You can even hear the music up here.”

Bucky stilled, and focused his ears. There was indeed music on the air, a little more than indistinct noise, clearing his thoughts he could hear the words, pick them out of the still night sky. The girl hopped down off the ledge and held a hand out to him. Bucky gripped his tumbler a little tighter and she rolled her eyes in response. 

“C’mon,” she said, wiggling her fingers at him, hand still outstretched. “It’s a party. Dance with me.”

“Can’t dance,” Bucky muttered, half under his breath, edging back to the ledge and pouring himself more whiskey. 

“Liar,” she said slowly, coming closer so that she was stood directly in front of him and a crooked half smile dimpling one corner of her mouth.The ghost of a laugh played around her lips and she tilted her chin up to fix him with what was unmistakably a challenge. 

Bucky raised the cut glass tumbler to his mouth and paused for a moment, before tipping the contents down his throat. Head tilted back, shaggy hair curling into the open collar of Steve’s shirt. He felt it burn the same path down into his chest, the warmth spreading out to his shoulders. He glanced down at the little brunette who was still gazing up at him. 

He sniffed, drawing the back of his hand - still clasping the empty tumbler - under his nose briefly, scratching at the soft skin between his nose and his upper lip before he dropped the glass decidedly on the ledger and turned to the girl in one swift movement. One hand went to the small of her back, the other grasping her right hand firmly, a knee between her legs, pushing off with the other as he pulled her flush against him and span them both across the rooftop. 

The girl laughed, tilting her head back in his firm grip and moving with him easily as he spun first faster and then slower, sliding into long easy steps that might have been a waltz back in his youth. The music, not quite loud enough but still present, danced on the air along with the pair of them. 

Glancing down, Bucky noted the girl’s bare feet and lifted her with little effort until she was balancing on his shoes. Her free hand drifted to his chest, laying softly against him with a flat palm. He’d not been able to fasten the top two buttons, not with the extra strain his left arm put on the fabric, and the touch of her index finger against his bare skin burned across him deeper than stolen whiskey. 

The girl closed her eyes and let herself drop back in his arms. Bucky, taking the hint, slowed to a halt and dipped her low, bending her back as far as he dared, arm wrapped tightly around her as she went. She did laugh then, one leg rising as the rest of her dipped, toes pointing and her dark hair tumbling free of her shoulders. 

Bucky righted them both, pulling her flush against him as he stood up, her arms around his neck and her face so close to his that he could feel the warmth of her breath against his cheek and practically taste the whiskey that tinged it. 

“See,” she said quietly, looking at him with a grin. “You can dance.”

“I haven’t done this since I was a kid,” Bucky answered, looking back at the girl in his arms and reflexively holding her tighter, something a little possessive curling in the centre of his chest, hot and bright. “Barely more than a teenager, really. Guess it’s … Muscle memory. Or something.”

“So what else haven’t you done since you were a kid?”

There was a laugh in her voice and a promise in her eyes as she asked it, and Bucky couldn’t work out whether, if he chased it, he’d sink or swim. Whether he should stand still or jump in. Instead of thinking too hard on it, he closed his eyes and jumped.


End file.
